McDowell and McDowell Intermediate high school students will have to leave their cellphones in their lockers beginning next fall.

The Millcreek Township School Board voted 5-4 Tuesday to revise the district’s electronic devices policy. The revised policy no longer allows students to use mobile phones before and between classes, at lunch or in some tutorial periods.

Phones distract students from learning when notifications constantly sound in class. And social media messages can cause drama in school, and that also distracts students and sometimes leads to discipline issues, administrators said in proposing the changes.

The previous district policy already prohibited phone use in classrooms but wasn’t enforced, said School Director Michael Lindner, who voted against the revised policy.

“How are we going to enforce this more than the existing policy,” Lindner said. “If the problem with the first policy is enforcement, how does enforcement get better by making a more restrictive policy.”

Allowing students to use mobile phones at some times during the day but not in classrooms was difficult to enforce, School Director Shirley Winschel said.

“It will be much easier to enforce when the rule is they’re in their lockers,” Winschel said. “That’s much easier to enforce than allowing students to keep them on silent on their desks, then turning around and they’re texting.”

The new policy is too restrictive in prohibiting phones at lockers before school and at lunch, said school directors who voted against the revisions.

“I think there are times during the day when (students) can have them,” School Director Wade Brink said. “I think the (revised) policy is overreaching.”

If students are allowed to use their phones at lunch, that’s what they will do, School Director Sallie Newsham said. “If we let them have them at lunch, all they’re going to do is sit on them and not communicate with each other.”

Brink, Jason Dean and Mike Kobylka joined Lindner in voting against the cellphone ban. Newsham, Shirley Winschel, Gary Winschel, Janis Filbeck and Sue Ellen Pasquale voted in favor.

Before the vote, Lindner’s amended motion to allow mobile phone use at lockers and at lunch failed by an identical vote.

A second Lindner amendment to reinstate the former policy after one semester if the district failed to show improvements, such as higher student grades and fewer discipline problems, also failed by an identical vote.

The district will notify parents of the cellphone ban by letter and through electronic messaging, social media and the district website, assistant schools Superintendent Trevor Murnock said.

Mobile phones in school: Why McDowell educators want them kept in lockers

Contact Valerie Myers at vmyers@timesnews.com.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Millcreek School Board splits in approving McDowell mobile phone ban